


leaning against the fourth wall

by talibusorabat (hermitcave)



Series: Cozying Up to the Fourth Wall [3]
Category: Community
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-15
Updated: 2011-12-15
Packaged: 2017-10-27 09:46:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/294381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hermitcave/pseuds/talibusorabat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Abed finds himself questioning the value of a blanket empire, Troy reminds him what really matters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	leaning against the fourth wall

**Author's Note:**

  * For [moonlight69](https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonlight69/gifts).



“ _Nants ingonyama bagithi Baba  
Sithi uhm ingonyama -_“

“Uh, Abed, what are you doing with that kitten?”

Abed lowered the feline and turned to look at his best friend. “Showing him our empire.” He adjusted his grip on the struggling creature. “Look, Simba. Everything the light touches is our kingdom.”

He, Troy, and little Simba looked out over what had once been Greendale Community College. The kitten seemed less than impressed.

“I just can’t wait to be king,” Troy sighed.

He waited for Abed to offer a pithy pop culture response, but his friend was silent. This wasn’t unusual - Abed sometimes went for hours without saying a word while the computer processor in his head soaked up information - but there was a strangely emotional quality to it. Like he was actually _thinking_ instead of processing.

“You okay?” the football player asked.

Abed sat on the ground and settled the kitten on his lap. “Why are we here, Troy?”

“Uhh… because you wanted to show Simba our kingdom?”

Abed shook his head. “I don’t mean here, on the roof of the HVAC building. I mean _here_. In Blanketania.”

Troy settled down next to his friend. “Is this about what that reporter said? ‘Cause I’m telling you, man, britches be crazy.” He frowned. “Seriously. How did anyone actually _wear_ those things?”

“He had a point, though,” Abed said. “Why build a blanket empire?”

“Because it’s _fun_. Duh, Abed.”

“Is that reason enough?” The young filmmaker idly scratched the kitten’s ears. “I don’t watch the news - it’s so contrived, and the acting is terrible - but you don’t have to be Britta to know that the world is messed up. We’re hurdling at warp speed towards a terrible crossover between _V for Vendetta_ and _Firefly_.”

“Dude, that sounds _awesome!_ ” Troy protested. “I wanna be a space cowboy who blows stuff up!”

“Except we can’t go into space,” Abed pointed out. “They killed NASA.”

“Right.” Troy wilted. “That _sucks_.”

“We don’t get the satisfaction of being a spaghetti western in space,” Abed said. “All we get is an increasingly invasive government controlled by shadowy corporations looking to make a profit at any cost.”

“Someone should write a book about that,” Troy said.

“Instead, I constructed an empire made of bedsheets over the rubble of a dilapidated educational institution. That reporter was right. It’s pointless.” The young filmmaker sighed. “I’m an artist, Troy. And art is power. Shouldn’t I be using that power to do something good?”

Troy never really quite knew what to do with Abed’s  moments of profundity. “… _Man_ I wish Jeff was here. He’d know what to say.”

Abed frowned. “He’d know what to say, but I don’t think he’d know the answer. He’s superficial. He only really cares about looking good. At the end of the day, he’s not invested in the bigger picture. He’d rather game the system than fix it.”

“Yeah,” Troy conceded. “He’s kind of an entitled ass.”

They lapsed into silence. Troy felt his friend’s pain, but he didn’t know how to respond. Deep philosophical discourse was not part of their usual routine, and honestly, he tried to avoid anything deep in general. He struggled for something, anything, to comfort his friend.

“Grown-ups are stupid,” was what he came up with. Where Jeff or Britta would have responded with a snarky remark, Abed just waited patiently for elaboration. “I mean, they all keep going around, saying ‘You need to do this’ and ‘You need to do that’ and yeah, okay, Shirley was right when she told me not to take the cookies out of the oven with my bare hands. But all this other stuff - the vice dean telling me I have to choose HVAC, that reporter telling you a blanket empire is a complete waste of everybody’s time - it’s a load of Cool Whip. By which I mean it is artificial and gross. It’s like they care more about controlling other people’s lives than just living their own.”

“Vice Dean Laybourne does seem oddly invested in you,” Abed agreed.

“I know, right? It’s creepy. And as for that reporter - screw him! It’s his fault the world got this way in the first place!”

“Assigning blame doesn’t really solve anything,” Abed said.

But suddenly, everything clicked into place for Troy. “Abed, you know what my grandmother used to do when we’d beat her at poker?”

“No.”

“She’d tell us we were playing Go Fish.”

Abed tilted his head quizzically. “I don’t see the connection.”

“When the game stopped working for her, she changed the game,” Troy said. “That reporter was trying to get you to play the game by his rules, except his rules suck. What the world needs right now is a change in game. Abed.” Troy turned so he could look his friend directly in the eye. “You are probably the bravest person I know, except for Batman. Actually, you _are_ the bravest person I know, since I don’t know Batman personally. You are who you are. And you’ve helped me be me, just by being my friend. If you were a superhero, _that_ would be your superpower, and they’d dropkick Aquaman out of the Justice League to make room for you.”

“They should kick him out anyway,” Abed said. “He’s lame.”

“Word.” But Troy wouldn’t be derailed. “The world tries to tell us that it’s bad to be who we are. It’s bad to be black; it’s bad to be Muslim; it’s bad to stay up until dawn playing _Left 4 Dead_ on a school night. That’s the game everybody else is losing. But you’ve changed the game. You play by your own rules. And that’s a _good_ thing.” He wrapped an arm around Abed’s shoulder and pulled him close. “It’s like Oprah said, you gotta be the change you wanna see in the world.”

“It was actually Ghandi.”

“The guy whose empty stomach moves mountains?”

“Yup.”

Troy nodded thoughtfully. “Wise dude.”

“Yeah.” Abed leaned his head against Troy’s shoulder. “Thanks, Troy.”

“Anytime.” Troy rested his cheek on Abed’s head. “…This just got a little gay, didn’t it?”

“According to contemporary American social mores regarding appropriate behavior between male friends…yes.”

Troy thought about this. “So it’s another one of those stupid grown-up rules.”

“Pretty much.”

“Cool Whip.” Troy squeezed Abed’s shoulder in silent defiance.

“Britches be crazy,” Abed agreed.

 

“Where’d you get the cat, anyway?”


End file.
